Chapter 9

Nine

"It is easier to trust the kindness of a hungry wolf than it is to trust kindness from a sorcerer, for it is in the wolf’s nature to go for the throat in its need for meat, where a sorcerer’s actions are rarely so honest." — Sayings of the Blessed Crow.

Mara was dying; she was sure of it. Ana-Maria Corvo had been cursed for loving alcohol too much and had died of a hangover that had lasted a year.

Mara was positive that curse had somehow found her, even though Ana-Maria had died at least two hundred years ago and on the other side of the world.

She didn’t think she had drunk enough to deserve this pain splitting her skull apart. She felt strangely emptied out like she did if she served more than five petitioners in a day.

"It serves you right, getting drunk with that lout," Athanasius said primly. He was sitting on Augustus’s vacated chair and rubbing his scent all over it to drown out the male interloper’s aftershave.

"I didn’t get drunk with him. We just ended up being drunk together," she groaned. She picked up Augustus’s neglected glass of water and downed it. "When did he leave?"

"About four hours ago. He was just about beaming with good health as opposed to you. You look like an animated corpse."

"That doesn’t seem right at all." She boiled a jug of water and made a blend that usually cured a hangover. Her eyes rested on the candle that was still burning by the feet of the saint.

"He lit it before he left. He was very excited about something. He did say to tell you thank you and that he wants to see you soon. I really wish you’d take the threat of him more seriously, Mara."

"Augustus is hardly a threat. And yes, I know sorcerers are bad news. I’ll fight about it with you when I don’t have a mariachi band in my head."

"You should check your mother’s trunk for information on why saints and sorcerers shouldn’t mix," Athanasius said before spraying the seat and stalking away.

Mara forced herself to swallow a mouthful of the hangover cure, winced, and went back to her bed. Her mother’s trunk. She was too hungover to even contemplate tackling that particular task.

Like the statue of Saint Anea, her mother’s trunk had been a fixture in their travels after leaving the family.

After Sophia’s death, Mara had placed it under her mother’s bed and had never gone through it.

As Mara dozed, her mind raced through the events of the past weeks, which melded together in a nightmarish kaleidoscope until they settled on the moment she’d placed her lips over Augustus’s.

Mara’s scattered mind cringed that she’d done it at all. It had been stolen, not given, and she knew he’d be horrified if he found out. She couldn’t be sure, but as she reflected on the kiss, she felt the odd pressure of the strange miracle again.

Just your drunken mind imagining things, she reassured herself. Mara swore then and there that she was never drinking whiskey sours again.

* * *

"Mara, wake up. Someone is here," Athanasius said, paws poking at her face.

"What are you talking about? We aren’t even open," Mara complained. She opened her eyes and noticed that the room was already dark with shadows. She’d slept the whole day. She swung her feet over the bed and pulled on a robe over her crumpled pajamas.

Mara stumbled downstairs, following the knocking on her shop door. A Taiwanese man was standing on the other side with a takeout bag and a confused expression on his face.

"Hi, can I help?"

"Are you Mara?" he asked.

"Yeah? But I didn’t—" she began, but he pushed the bag into her hands. He gave the storefront another confused look and shook his head before driving away on his scooter as fast as he could.

Mara took the bag into her kitchen and found a container of clear broth chicken laksa, a green juice, and a note that read, ’Dear Saint of brawling, I thought you might need this when you woke up tonight. Thanks again for the rescue and whatever cure you gave me before bed, Augustus. P.S. this is my phone number…’

Mara stared at the mobile number and the soup, remembering the way he’d brushed his cheek up the side of her neck, lips against her ear. She blushed from her toes to the roots of her hair.

Did he remember doing that?

"What’s the matter with you?" Athanasius asked. He leaped up on the counter and smelled the soup. "I didn’t think we could order in because the shop kept moving."

"We can’t. Augustus can track the shop, so he sent it," she said, rubbing her neck and trying to forget the phantom touch.

"Well. He better have ordered extra chicken for me," Athanasius sniffed.

Mara found her mobile phone in her still damp handbag and turned it on. She kept it to read books on and occasionally contact the family branch still located in Europe. Mostly, she ignored it.

She typed in Augustus’s number and stared at it while she sipped her green juice.

"This was rather nice of him, even though I don’t know what was in the cure I gave him," Mara admitted. She opened the laksa bowl and fished out some chicken pieces for the cat at her elbow.

"I can grudgingly admit he’s less of a prick than other sorcerers I’ve met. That doesn’t mean I like or trust him, and neither should you."

"I know you have a bad history with his kind, but he hasn’t done anything to deserve animosity from me. I think…he’s my friend."

Admitting it out loud and sober, Mara knew it was true. She couldn’t help but like him, and fighting against it seemed like a twisted kind of self-harm.

"You always were the strangest saint I’ve seen. Ever since the lightning turned your hair white, I knew you were going to be…something else. Protect that heart of yours, Mara. It’s all I ask," Athanasius said before turning his attention to the cooled chicken pieces.

"I thought the lightning story was just Sophia being dramatic," Mara said, picking up her spoon.

"No. It scared her. Scared everyone. This little black-haired baby screaming at the sky, and then her hair turning white before our eyes. Why do you think Sophia was always so overprotective of you?"

"Because she was a bitter woman who thought she could make more money off me if we were on our own." Mara shocked herself more than Athanasius. She’d never spoken of her mother in such a way, even though she’d thought it nearly every day since they moved to Australia.

"Your mother was a complicated woman, little crow, but she loved you. She knew that you had more power and potential than the rest. She didn’t know how to protect you. She didn’t know what to do with you. She wanted you far away from the family’s eyes in case you became stronger. She was scared of what they would do. She was scared of you."

Mara didn’t want to contemplate that. She wanted to eat her food and go back to bed, not worry about Sophia. She was dead, and her rules and opinions and hunches weren’t worth anything anymore.

To prove that, she sent Augustus a text: Tks for the soup. Am dying. Cat says extra chicken next time. Saint of brawling = good fighter name. Mara :)

She had managed to eat two mouthfuls of soup before her phone buzzed.

You’re welcome. I thought my hangover cure might help you, seeing how yours helped me (we need to talk about that one). What are you doing tomorrow? I have a magic-related errand to run. Do you want to come?

"Trust Augustus to use full grammar and spelling in his texts," Mara said, shaking her head. She told him to come and find her when he wanted to go.